Thank you to the real life heroes at UK HealthCare who saved my life from COVID-19

This is my recollection of my experience struggling to survive COVID-19 on the 10th floor of the University of Kentucky Hospital. Like most Americans, I have watched the news and seen healthcare workers all over the country be called heroes. To a certain extent, I think I took that term hero and their service for granted. Yes, they were heroes but I hadn’t been affected by their heroism. That all changed on Jan. 7 when I was admitted to the UK hospital with a positive COVID-19 test, suffering from shortness of breath. As an African American male with some preexisting conditions this was not good.

As I was admitted to the COVID unit, I was immediately put on a high flow breathing machine with severe respiratory distress due to lung inflammation. I was in really bad shape and over the next three weeks would be fighting for my life. Now the heroes I had taken for granted were front and center in my life. They were no longer just healthcare workers. Now they had names like Nurses Jennifer, Regina and Mandi, Techs Cody and Adam, Doctors Troy and DJ Aluru and so many others. These were no longer far away heroes that I saw on the news, they were my very real heroes. Their encouragement, care and kindness was so genuine and comforting during a time of great anxiety and stress. In the COVID unit you are not allowed to have family visits, so the healthcare professionals became my family visitors. They would always come in and just tell me to focus on breathing and getting home to my beautiful family; I had shown them pictures of course.

I believe their care and encouragement along with the love of my family and friends and my very real faith is what gave me the desire to continue the fight to breath. All the while knowing that I had no control of the situation. I felt like I fought hard to continue breathing because I wanted to get home to my family but the reality is I was spared by the Grace of God!

I am home now with my beautiful wife Carla and three wonderful kids which is a blessing. I am on oxygen and can’t do much yet but I’m very thankful. In the end, I can truly say that the UK HealthCare providers are no longer just heroes I see on the news; they are my very personal heroes that helped save my life. I will forever be grateful for their care and encouragement. For all those that have lost a loved one due to this virus my thoughts and prayers go out to you.

D. McGinnis Mitchell is the director of business development at Equity Solutions Group, LLC.

This story was originally published February 3, 2021 at 9:10 AM.